VacationSelector
The Teatro Colón, Buenos Aires
Buenos AiresThe Teatro Colón
Playa de los Muertos below the green hills, Puerto Vallarta
Puerto VallartaPlaya de los Muertos below the green hills

Photos: Buenos Aires by Bernard Gagnon, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Puerto Vallarta by RL0919, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Buenos Aires or Puerto Vallarta?

Our verdict in twelve categories, each scored against the same fixed benchmark cities, and the climate month by month, so you can choose for your trip.

Choose Buenos Aires for

  • culture and sights
  • live music and the arts
  • nightlife

What lies behind each score is written up on Buenos Aires’s own page.

Choose Puerto Vallarta for

  • beaches
  • nature and the outdoors
  • wellness

What lies behind each score is written up on Puerto Vallarta’s own page.

Scoreboard

Twelve categories on one fixed scale from 0 to 100. The shaded stretch is the gap between the two.

Beaches & swimming. Buenos Aires 7, Puerto Vallarta 85: Puerto Vallarta leads by 78 points.
Food & drink. Buenos Aires 75, Puerto Vallarta 62: Buenos Aires leads by 13 points.
Culture & sights. Buenos Aires 71, Puerto Vallarta 28: Buenos Aires leads by 43 points.
Nightlife. Buenos Aires 95, Puerto Vallarta 66: Buenos Aires leads by 29 points.
Nature & outdoors. Buenos Aires 38, Puerto Vallarta 76: Puerto Vallarta leads by 38 points.
Day trips. Buenos Aires 60, Puerto Vallarta 55: Buenos Aires leads by 5 points.
Good for families. Buenos Aires 52, Puerto Vallarta 65: Puerto Vallarta leads by 13 points.
Getting around. Buenos Aires 62, Puerto Vallarta 45: Buenos Aires leads by 17 points.
Shopping & style. Buenos Aires 60, Puerto Vallarta 42: Buenos Aires leads by 18 points.
Affordability. Buenos Aires 55, Puerto Vallarta 60: Puerto Vallarta leads by 5 points.
Live music & performing arts. Buenos Aires 75, Puerto Vallarta 32: Buenos Aires leads by 43 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Buenos Aires 28, Puerto Vallarta 52: Puerto Vallarta leads by 24 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Buenos Aires and Puerto Vallarta.

Your match

Pick a travel style or drag the sliders, and both match scores follow your weighting.

Too close to call, 1 point apart

Buenos Aires
57match

Wins on culture and sights and live music and the arts with your weighting.

Puerto Vallarta
56match

Wins on beaches and nature and the outdoors with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

Pick your month. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.

Buenos Aires in July

15 °Cdaytime high
8 °Cnight-time low
50 mmrain in the month
5 hsunshine a day
13 °Csea
10 hdaylight a day

Puerto Vallarta in July

34 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
209 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
30 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
Buenos AiresPuerto Vallarta

Where the figures come from

Puerto Vallarta has no weather station within reach, so its figures come from a gridded climate model rather than a measured record, and read a broad area rather than the city itself.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Buenos Aires: 1991-2020 normals, Aeroparque Bs. As. Aerodrome (4.9 km from centre). Puerto Vallarta: 1991-2020 normals, TerraClimate 4 km grid at the town, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureBuenos AiresPuerto Vallarta
Official languageSpanishSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya
CurrencyArgentine Peso (ARS)Mexican Peso (MXN)
SocketsCI220 V, 50 HzAB127 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC-3UTC-6
Emergency number117 or 911911
Elevation25 m101 m
Main airportEzeiza International Airport - Ministro Pistarini (EZE)28 km from centre48 non-stop destinationsPuerto Vallarta International Airport (PVR)5 km from centre52 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year16 days9 days

By the numbers

MeasureBuenos AiresPuerto Vallarta
City population3,121,707224,166
People per km²15,3554,311
Museums within 10 km762
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km11
Swim season, months above 21 °C4 months12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Buenos Aires or Puerto Vallarta somewhere new.

Browse every destination

Sources

Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. Rainfall where no rain gauge is within 25 km is from the TerraClimate 1991-2020 climatology (Abatzoglou et al. 2018, Scientific Data), read at the city. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. Airport data from OurAirports (public domain). Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). Non-stop route lists from the "Airlines and destinations" tables on English Wikipedia airport articles, by Wikipedia contributors, reused under CC BY-SA 4.0. Currency from the ISO 4217 register maintained by SIX, cross-checked against country data from GeoNames (CC BY 4.0). Price level from World Bank open data (PPP conversion factor for private consumption and official exchange rate), CC BY 4.0. Time zones from GeoNames (CC BY 4.0); clock offsets computed from the IANA time zone database. Temperature and rainfall for destinations with no weather station are from the NASA POWER 2001-2020 climatology, derived from MERRA-2. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates. Daylight hours computed from each destination's latitude using the NOAA solar position algorithm.

Category scores are our editorial verdict under rubric v3, each placed against the same fixed benchmark cities; the climate figures are measured. How the scores are set. Snapshot generated 2026-10-31. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.